New gas furnace, odors causing headaches, please help!!

[valar]

What happens if you keep the basement door open? In order to pressurize the house you have to be drawing air from outside the house. The furnace should just be circulating the air. Where is your duct work and do you have a outside air intake?

Opening the basement door doesn't do anything. The ductwork goes to each room and there are returns in each room. there are no major gaps/leaks in the ducts that I can see. The only outside air intake is the PVC pipe leading to the furnace, but as I understand it that only leads to the combustion chamber and then back out the PVC exhaust, not into the house.

ill bet you installer thinks your crazy

Maybe, but I've paid close to $10,000 and have a house I can't live in. Crazy or not it's not a funny or trivial situation

Using the thickest filter they make is a terrible idea. I see motor replacements in your future.

Yeah, the condition of the furnace that is causing my house to be unlivable isn't really a big concern or mine.

check to see if there is a fresh air inlet, or if you have a large return plenum that runs through unconditioned space that's very leaky...

There's no fresh air inlet I can see. I don't know what a large plenum return is. If I need to have my ductwork checked out, who do you call about that? The installer seems only concerned about the furnace and that's it. None of the ductwork was touched, and it never caused me any problems before.

it's causing the furnace blower to ramp up very high

It's a single speed motor, I don't think it can ramp up to anything.

a blower door duct blaster test

How do I do that? Are there duct specialists you can call?

[stvc]

If there is no fresh air inlet [it would go from outside to the return air ductwork] then there is return ductwork leakage. Without seeing it I assume it's in the attic.
A duct blaster test is what needs to be done to identify how much and where the leaks are. It's typically energy auditors doing that testing but quite a few HVAC contractors are getting into it. Search for Resnet or BPI to start, that will be some good basic info for you.

What area do you live? There are qualified members on this site who may be in your area.

[energy_rater_La]

vstech & stvc are addressing what I too believe is your issue.
your post # 15 provided a piece of the puzzle previously
unknown. good that you discovered this!


www.resnet.us
energy raters test ductwork as a standard part of evaluation.
http://www.bpi.org
make sure that auditor tests ductwork as I don't think it is
standard always for bpi.

whomever you hire should have experience.


"Maybe, but I've paid close to $10,000 and have a house I can't live in. Crazy or not it's not a funny or trivial situation."
I'd be upset myself, but hopefully you have gotten an idea of
the direction you now need to persue.

sorry to hear of your issue, hope you can resolve it without much delay.
keep us in the loop.

best of luck.

[vstech]

There's no fresh air inlet I can see. I don't know what a large plenum return is. If I need to have my ductwork checked out, who do you call about that? The installer seems only concerned about the furnace and that's it. None of the ductwork was touched, and it never caused me any problems before.



It's a single speed motor, I don't think it can ramp up to anything. ?

all a/c motors are load based... if the restriction is too high, the motor will ramp up higher and higher to achieve load. it's got nothing to do with variable speed or multispeed... it's a fact based on airflow. and if the airflow is incorrect due to restriction, the motor will run VERY hot and fail quickly.


only way to know if a contractor can do a duct blaster test is to call and ask them. our company does it, and it's become a code requirement in my state, so more and more contractors are getting into the practice.
leaky ductwork has MANY problems, energy wasting, and environment contamination are big ones!

[energy_rater_La]

tell us about your return air
where is it located?

where is ductwork located?

can you take some pics of both r/a
& ductwork?

[valar]

tell us about your return air
where is it located?

where is ductwork located?

can you take some pics of both r/a
& ductwork?

My house is a 2 story, 3BR 1/5BA colonial, about 1650 sq ft.
Here is a list of supply vents:
Basement (Finished)
Powder room
Kitchen
Dining room
Two in living room
1 in each bedroom
Bathroom

Returns are as follows
Dining room
2 in living room
1 in each bedroom


The attic is insulated and has a floor.


If the returns are leaky, how can they be sealed? Would I have to tear open all my walls?

I live in Wilmington DE if anyone here services this area.


At this point I think I narrowed it down to 3 possibilities:

Heat exchanger: I may just be sensitive to hot aluminum fumes, so an oil furnace would solve the problem. This would explain why turning the fan to on with no heat does not give me headaches, but having the heat on does. However, other homes with gas furnaces have not bothered me, which means maybe it's not that

Too much air coming out of vents: I know high air pressure can trigger me, and the air is coming out way faster than before, so either adding returns or somehow balancing the pressure would solve this. However, if that was it, why wouldn't having the fan to on with no heat not trigger me? I know hot air takes up more volume than cold air so that may be an explanation. If this is the reason, balancing the airflow fixes my problem

Irritation from oil fumes: I may have had my sinuses or other area irritated by the oil fumes initially burning off and until that irritation clears up heated air may cause me headache pain. No way to really test this except wait and see if it goes away on it's own. But this would explain why occasionally I have gotten the pain in my temples when I am outside my house.

[energy_rater_La]

tell us about your return air
where in the room is it located?
ceiling? wall? chase in wall?
I've gotten inside returns and sealed
them...narrowest was 12x18. it can be
done..but takes a small person who
wants to do the job correctly.
it also depends upon the type of return you have.

where is ductwork located?
in basement & between floors?

can you take some pics of both r/a
& ductwork?

I'd explore options other than replacing gas furnace
as it is an expensive way to go with no recoup of
monies.

have you spoken to anyone with resnet or bpi?
doesn't cost anythig to call & talk to someone.

best of luck.

[valar]

Well, I got my digital barometer and it reads an increase of about 500 mPa when the system is running. The supplies are blowing air at 2.1 m/s with a 1900 filter in there, but the returns don't seem to be sucking in any air at all, the air speed meter reads 0. So I think it is a pressure problem, the returns are not taking the air back into the system fast enough to deal with the amount of air the system is pumping out.

So ideas on how I can reduce the air pressure in the rooms? I don't think I can seal these returns, they are like 6x10, a baby couldn't fit in there. And they are in the walls. I could seal up the parts that are exposed in the basement but thats all I could get too.

How about adding a bypass duct between the supply and return? That would siphon some air off the supply from going out of the vents and dump it right back in the return, lowering the pressure it is putting out into the rooms of the house, right? I could get a damper on it to for finer control of how much to lower the pressure.

[valar]

OK, update

I have a bypass humidifier installed it's about 10 years old. To test my pressure theory I removed the filter and opened the bypass up to reduce pressure. And lo and behold, headaches got better and eventually went away. Only problem was I had no humidifier

So I ask the installer to install a new bypass for me so I can get the humidifier back. He puts in a 10 inch bypass with a damper running from the supply to the return.I open the damper all the way up and I put the filter of the humidifier back in. Headaches return. I remove the filter from the humidifier, still get headaches. So I'm thinking maybe it's the new metal of the new bypass. So I remove the bypass, put the old metal back (using brackets and foil tape), putting everything right back to how it was when it did not cause me headaches, and 'm still getting headaches.

So the configuration that did not cause me headaches 2 days ago now causes me headaches. This is infuriating.